ABBOTTSTOWN: Greg Hodnett appeared to lose the front two cars and was ready to settle for a third-place finish Thursday night at Lincoln Speedway.

You couldn't blame him. Alan Krimes and Fred Rahmer were in front of him, and they have been two of the faster cars at the speedway this season.

But Hodnett had one more trick in the bag. It wasn't fancy, but it had style points. At least in the final rundown.

The Thomasville driver went old-school aggressive, ripping around the outside of the corners on the small half-mile to pass both Rahmer and Krimes and capture the 30-lap feature. The victory was worth $4,000.

“I thought that was it,” Hodnett said. “Rahmer was working good on the bottom, and Alan moved down there. When he did, it opened up a lane there, and it worked out for us.

“The track slowed down. I was driving too straight and started driving idiot style, kind of free wheeling it in there until I hit something.”

It was Hodnett's second win of the season at Lincoln and 27th overall. He has four total triumphs on the season heading into Friday's World of Outlaws Summer Nationals preliminary night at Williams Grove Speedway.

As for this event, it was a three-horse race.

Krimes grabbed the lead from Steve Owings on lap 4 with a low move through Turn 4. Hodnett followed on the high side to grab the second spot one lap later.

Rahmer entered the picture on a lap 6 restart. He ducked under Owings in Turn 4 and duplicated the move on Hodnett on the next circuit to take second.

Glenndon Forsythe brought out the caution for a second time when he slowed exiting Turn 4 on lap 9. Two laps after the restart, Hodnett blew around the top and passed Rahmer for the runner-up position.

Hodnett tried a slide job on Krimes on lap 13, but the leader buzzed the top and held the position. On lap 16, Rahmer took second from Hodnett low out of Turn 4.

“I never in a million years thought I would pass Fred and Alan,” Hodnett said. “We got lucky. They ran where we weren't, and it was a set of circumstances that benefitted us.”

Scott Fisher brought out the final caution on lap 22, when he rolled to a stop between Turns 3 and 4. Rahmer looked to the outside of Krimes on the restart, but he couldn't pull off the pass and dropped back five car-lengths.

Hodnett started hitting his marks and making up ground on lap 25. Two laps later, he passed Rahmer coming out of Turn 2.

Krimes was guarding the bottom from Rahmer. The problem for the leader was that Hodnett was second and pounding the cushion.

Before Krimes could block, Hodnett got to the outside of and was even with the leader at the stripe to complete lap 29.

Krimes had no chance. Hodnett blistered his way into Turn 1 and exited Turn 2 with the lead. He pulled away over the last half to take the victory.

“It's coming around,” Hodnett said. “We struggled with our car for a while, but we found something about a month ago.

“We're still not as good and consistent as Fred. There's so many guys here who run great that it makes us look like a bunch of monkeys sometimes.”

Not on this night.

Krimes settled for second, followed by Rahmer. Jim Siegel and Logan Schuchart completed the top five.

Jeff Rohrbaugh held off Doug Hammaker to register the victory in the 20-lap 358 Sprint Car feature. It was his second win of the year at Lincoln.

Hammaker was second, followed by Chase Dietz, point leader Niki Young and Tim Wagaman.

FONDA

Danny Dietrich defeated the All Star Circuit of Champions in the second night of the New York swing.